The Teacher
by Frozen Shattered Roses
Summary: The Winter War is going badly. Captain Commander Ukitake recklessly agrees to pull the finest students out of the academy for emergency training. The goal - to make these students the strongest shinigami possible. The method? The Substitute.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, its characters or its settings.

* * *

"Student Shinigami," said Captain Commander Ukitake, "Soul Society is under threat like never before. The Arrancar War is a conflict the likes of which we have never seen before."

He was repeating himself, but he was tired.

The new Captain Commander addressed a small sea of faces, just over two hundred students from the Seireitei academy. These were the best of the students in each year, the students with true potential, the students who had already surpassed the lowest level shinigami in the thirteen squads.

"We are at war and we need soldiers. Some of you may have memories of your mortal lives, may remember being soldiers yourselves. Forget them. This war has no mortal equivalent."

"It's a battle of champions. I don't like that word, but it will serve. Our rank-and-file warriors will battle their rank-and-file warriors as a mater of necessity, but a single powerful individual on either side can annihilate legions until he or she is balanced off or even overwhelmed by a champion of the other side. A single run of bad luck can kill thousands. If one of our tenth seats and three hundred shinigami encountered a single Espada, we would lose three hundred and one. But a single one of our captains could defeat a hundred Gillians, given time."

Did they know about Gillians? They were still part of the curriculum, weren't they? Ukitake wondered again if he was doing the right thing. This was Shunsui's plan.

His head felt woolly from lack of sleep.

"Today is your first day out of your regular classes. You're no longer students at the academy, you are acting shinigami. This is a privilege, not a right, and you're expected to act like shinigami."

"As I said, this is a battle of champions. The only problem is that none of you are champions." Ukitake gestured behind him, to his former third seats. "I've had my aides draft up documents on recent history, documents that would normally only be available to seated officers of the Gotei 13. You will treat the contents as confidential. The documents will bring you up to speed, you'll have one day to familiarize yourselves with them. At this time tomorrow you will reassemble in this room where you will be issued full shinigami uniforms with special insignia. You will them be assigned squadrons. The squadrons will be assigned to certain of our up and coming shinigami. If you're careful reading your documentation you may even recognize their names."

That covered all the practical details Ukitake could remember. He was so tired.

Wait, wasn't there something else? Oh yeah...

"I'll be blunt. This is an experiment. If it doesn't work you'll die. If it does – I won't make any comments about carving places for yourselves in shinigami legend – I won't insult your intelligence. I do know you wouldn't like having Aizen as your god. Read your documentation. Be up to speed with what's happening. Dismissed."

The Captain Commander turned and stalked out, leaving the other two shinigami to distribute the piles of paper he'd brought.

_The war was still young and already going badly. Yama-ji had miscalculated twice to devastating consequence, losing his own life the second time and leaving Ukitake to pick up the pieces. _

_Shunsui transformed over night, taking on Ukitake's old place as heir apparent and second-in-command. The pink coat was gone, replaced by a black and white one that meant a new level of terror for the Arrancar. The old straw hat had been replaced by a bone white one. Shunsui was a ferocious warrior, more than a match for Zaraki, Ukitake himself, probably even Ichigo._

_They were in trouble, that was the only reason Ukitake had agreed to this insane plan. Shunsui and Ichigo had come to him, Ichigo probably at Shunsui's insistence. On the surface it made sense, a plan that Yama-ji never would have allowed. But Yama-ji had proven himself a superb warrior and a lousy general. He should have gone to front himself, loosed his bankai. A few thousand hollows and low level Arrancar would have been the work of seconds for the Captain Commander of the Gotei 13._

_It truly was a war of champions. A single above average warrior was worth ten average shinigami, a shinigami would could battle and defeat ten hollows at once was worth a hundred shinigami who could only match a single hollow. The old man had lost track of that, taken two thousand shinigami with him when he died on Aizen's sword._

_They were in trouble. This certainly wouldn't save them by itself, but if it were enough to tip the balance..._


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, its characters or its settings.

* * *

The previous twenty four hours had been a blur. To be pulled from class was one thing, to be told by the Captain Commander himself that they were joining the squads was completely another. Most of them hadn't even really known there was a war going on.

Ukitake's document was a short history leading up to the betrayal of Soul Society by three of their own. If the document hadn't come from the Captain Commander nobody would have believed it. It covered several years but focused on last year forward. The most recent events were less than a week old, the death of the old Captain Commander.

"I don't like this," said Shin Yamaguchi. He was the son of a branch household of the Kuchiki family, a noble who'd been shocked to learn he was going to the front lines of a war.

"Afraid?" asked Megumi something-or-other, a girl from his class. He didn't know her last name. She was one of those overly brave types with red hair. Shin wouldn't exactly call himself a coward but he liked to think he had an appropriate respect for his own life. Megumi was one of those who dreamed of ten thousand dead hollows at her feet, glossing over the bit where you actually had to kill them.

"Not afraid. Just surprised." Shin looked at his little manual from the day before.

It had been enlightening to say the least. There'd been the odd rumor last year, about a group of Ryoka who'd broken into the Seireitei proper, but it was hearsay sort of stuff, most of it too incredible to be believed.

Apparently a lot of it was true. As insane as it sounded. No wonder Megumi was so excited, she probably thought she'd ended up in a story.

In another part of the room a delicate blond stu – _shinigami _now, she realized, was at the heart of a group of boys. Karina Nemcova knew she was a beautiful girl, petite and exquisite and beloved by the many boys around her. She smiled her breathtaking smile as the boys competed to talk to her about the documentation they'd reviewed yesterday.

She never said a word when they misquoted names or got their facts wrong.

Karina was looking forward to meeting her new squad leader. She'd been assigning probabilities to the various candidates mentioned in Ukitake's literature based on the number of times each younger shinigami was cited by name. Admittedly that was a somewhat weak methodology, but she'd correlated those results against apparent areas of expertise mapped against her own (on the assumption that her own skills would be taken into account). The validity of the results was adequately high given what she had to work with. She'd narrowed the possibilities down to Nanao Ise, Renji Abari or possibly Momo Hinamori.

The math was really quite simple.

Suzu and Keita Tsukamoto were twins, only four years dead. They'd arrived in the first district of the Rukongai and were almost immediately spotted by a passing shinigami. They started the academy quite literally on the day they died.

Neither was quite sure what had happened. An accident probably. Dead was dead.

Both were dark haired, paled skinned. Tall and lean, though obviously Suzu was girlishly slim while Keita was broader shouldered than his little sister.

They'd always been competitive, with each other first and foremost. Not many people knew that. Suzu almost never said anything, Keita figured he spoke even less.

He hoped they'd be assigned together. It was him and Suzu against the world.

"Oi!"

Keita and Suzu turned with the rest of the room, looked to the shinigami at the podium. He wore sunglasses, a thin mustache and a flattop haircut.

And the Seventh Division lieutenant's badge.

"You punks," he shouted, but it didn't sound malicious. "Along the back wall are people handing out the uniforms. Find one that fits, go get changed and get back in here in ten minutes! And make sure you've got your damn Zampakutos!"

It suddenly dawned on Keita how real all of this was. Lieutenant Iba was the real thing, a Vice Captain of the thirteen squads.

Keita was a very skilled fighter, one of the best in his year. Suzu if anything was better. But something was giving him a nasty premonition.

The twins went in search of appropriate uniforms.

Ten minutes later the acting shinigami had assembled, just over two hundred students, from years one through seven of the academy program. All in uniform, all with a white emblem on the right sleeve.

Iba-sama didn't stand on ceremony. "Listen punks, you're being assigned to training squads for now. You're not joining actual divisions. I don't know where you're supposed to eat tonight but don't come around Seventh looking for a handout. Try Eleventh, the food is good there and they love new faces fresh from the academy. Tell them Renji sent you. Or try Twelfth Division, I'm sure they'll have something to feed you. To." He started looking down a list in front of him.

"Okay, I'm about to read out the names of everyone on Training Squad One. Don't forget what training squad you're on." He didn't bother to look up, started calling out names.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, its characters or its settings.

* * *

Shin Yamaguchi sighed. They'd put him on squad nine, the same squad as Megumi. The red haired girl was looking around, absolutely thrilled to be here.

_Here _was a training field. Whoever was supposed to be teaching them, or leading them or whatever hadn't shown up yet. The field was longer than it was wide, with freshly cut grass. It was surrounded by trees and huge lighting gantries like a stadium; there were enough lamps pointed at the field to use it in full darkness.

Vice Captain Iba had asked group nine if any of them could find their own arse with both hands. Somebody had indicated this might be possible, so he'd told that one to take the group down the path until they found this place. Nothing had happened since, so people had started to talk.

Megumi predictably was out of patience, wandering through the crowd, complaining the loudest. She was going to do _this_, she was going to do _that_. She was one of those people who just had to interfere, joining into every conversation she passed.

Shin didn't have a lot of hope. There were only sixteen people on squad nine, and given the Shin and Megumi components he'd assumed it was where all the trouble makers were put. Too many of the others thought like the red haired girl.

"Who do you think the squad leader will be?" It was a guy standing to his right, Shin didn't recognize him.

"No idea," replied Shin.

Megumi had been close enough to hear. With just sixteen people they weren't that widely spread.

"I think it will be Vice Captain Abarai or Third Seat Madarame."

Classic Megumi. Nobody asked her.

"I doubt we'll get one of them," said the guy to his right.

Shin more or less recognized some of the faces around, some of the people from the Zanpakuto experts club or the Hakuda club, or the Demon Arts club. A lot of them were younger, he only recognized Megumi from sixth year.

Meanwhile a pair of younger stud- acting shinigami approached, twins, by the look of them. Tall and slim. The girl said "Both Madarame-sama and Abarai-sama have achieved bankai." Her voice was very soft.

"I can't see them being assigned to a group of academy students," said another girl, short and freckled.

The male twin looked like he might say something, but didn't.

Wait a second, there were supposed to be twins in fourth year who'd-

Another girl approached, the absolutely beautiful one. Tiny blond.

"I suspect we'll be luckier than that." She glanced at the male twin, then the guy to Shin's right, then Shin himself.

_She knows something_, Shin realized. She was one of the younger ones, second year he though. Damn she was pretty.

Oh no, was she-

-it _couldn't_ be-

_The Math Girl?_

"What makes you say that?" countered Megumi.

"We're the unusual squad. The healers went to team two, the kido experts to team three, the sword fighters to team seven, the hand to hand fighters to teams one and five, the surveillance specialists to six and so on. This is the only training squadron that isn't specialized. We're also the smallest."

She _was _the Math Girl. Team nine should have been called Team Freak.

Somebody muttered "speak for yourself, runt."

"The special ones," said the guy to the right.

"The losers," said the male twin, sharp enough to twig to the fact.

"The ones that don't fit anywhere else," said Shin.

Megumi, outraged, said "speak for yourself, idiot!"

"No," said the beautiful little blond Math Girl. "We're the lucky ones."

"What makes you say that?" Shin asked.

Math Girl smiled her dazzling smile at Shin.

"There are sixteen people on squad nine and seventeen people here. I believe that makes the man on your right Ichigo Kurosaki."


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, its characters or its settings.

* * *

Ichigo Kurosaki uncrossed his arms. He'd been standing on Shin's right, with his right arm casually tucked behind him so you wouldn't notice he didn't have the acting shinigami insignia.

Shin stepped a little away, turned to face Kurosaki.

"You'd be Shin Yamaguchi," said the Substitute. A little louder he called "Oi! Listen up!"

The crowd of acting shinigami turned to face him.

"My name is Ichigo Kurosaki. Don't call me -sama. Team Nine is my training squadron, so I'm in charge here. I don't know what was in your briefing package, I forgot to read mine. Let me tell you a bit about myself. I'm a sexy beast, I put two captains in the hospital and I've defeated three vice captains at one time. I'm better informed than you are and I agree with this recruiting program, so if you don't like it, deal with it. Everyone around here frightened of hollows? Show of hands?"

Kurosaki-san put up his own hand. Shin put up his, he was probably first in the air. The others followed slowly. Only Megumi didn't raise her hand.

"You'd be Megumi I take it?"

The red head nodded proudly.

"Don't smile like that. I was about to say you're either inexperienced or stupid. I can only help you with one of those."

Megumi looked outraged, (she always did) and her jaw flapped open-

-and shut again. Kurosaki had a hell of a stare.

"So everyone admits to being afraid of hollows. That's good. It shows we understand each other and that you've got some brains to work with. You have no idea how happy that makes me. If you use the word 'afraid' to describe what you feel about hollows then there's no word for what you feel about Arrancar. Hollows are a child's nightmare. Arrancar are an adult's nightmare. And Arrancar are what we're going to face. You," Kurosaki looked at the pretty little blond. "You're Nemcova-kun?"

"Yes, Kurosaki-sama."

"No -sama. You can call me -san if you really have to but no -sama. And I've got no official rank either, I'm not a captain, a vice captain or a seated officer. Strictly speaking I'm not even a full shinigami. But then, neither are any of you. We have that in common, so let's all get along."

Kurosaki paused for a moment.

"I'm all talked out for now. Ask me some questions."

Megumi had to be first in line.

"What do we do now?"

"That's a bit general, isn't it? Does anyone have anything more specific?"

"How much of the documentation package from the Captain Commander is true?" That was the tall thin twin girl.

"You're Suzu-kun? I'm sorry, I went over your profiles last night, but I'm not much with names. Answer, I didn't read the package. Probably pretty accurate. Anything specific? Number of heads on an Arrancar, that sort of thing?"

"How bad was the last major battle?"

That was the beautiful little blond girl, Nemcova. Shin figured she was a smart kid.

"I wasn't there," said Ichigo. "I was part of a commando unit infiltrating Hueco Mundo at the time, another foray into Aizen's base. Anyway, I know people that were in the last battle and it was a disaster, plain and simple. Want the long and the short of it from an armchair general who didn't see it go down? The old Captain Commander was inflexible to the point of criminal neglect. A lot of people were killed because of it. We were outnumbered badly already, so this last battle was a major setback for us. Some people might use words like disaster."

He looked around.

"I asked for a lot of you specifically," said Kurosaki. "One thing most of you seem to have in common, you're smart. And most of you have already had a better military education than I ever will. Granted I have the practical experience. So call this strategy 101. Who wins a war of attrition? Us, who even at full strength have forces of less than fifteen thousand, and spend six or seven years educating each shinigami, or Aizen, who has limitless hollows to draw from? The weakest of the full Arrancar are a match for most of our seated officers. As far as we can tell Aizen can convert a few Gillian a day into full Arrancar. And he's got a _lot_ of Gillian. To you they're something from a textbook, but he's got tens of thousands of them. And lets be realistic kids, at the moment the only person here who can take a Gillian is me."

Shin didn't like the sound of that.

"Statistically," said the beautiful blond, "we-"

"We have a problem, yes," continued Kurosaki. "That's why you're here. We need a better solution. All around the Seireitei people are concentrating on training to increase their strength. You, the mathematician, percentage-wise whose power is more likely to double in the next few weeks, yours or Vice Captain Abarai?"

"Mine," said Karina. "The vice captain is enormously strong already. I'm not. Doubling my power would be less difficult."

"Exactly. That's why we're here. Any improvement you make is big relative to the strength you have now. Right now the sword group are dueling, the stealth group are on Soi Fon's obstacle course and the healing group are practicing on real live victims. We're going to do it differently, mostly because I'd like you to live. And believe me, the way you are now you'll bow to Aizen or you'll die, because the way things stand we're not going to win. So I'm going to try to make you over like me. I'm going to make you strong or I'm going to make you dead. Well, I'll make you strong or you'll make yourselves dead. And keep in mind I'm actually doing you a favor; I don't think Aizen is going to leave a single shinigami alive if he wins."

He gave them just a moment for that to sink in.

"This field is surrounded with equipment to contain hollows. I've got a big piece of hollow bait. Team nine is going to kill some hollows and we're going to do it right now. I wish I could say anyone who doesn't want to come doesn't have to, but it doesn't work like that. You fight or you die, it's that simple. The only way out of this is on a stretcher. Or you can find some hollows and try joining Aizen's side. He's always looking for people to feed to his monsters. Half a sec."

He raised a hand. Kurosaki wasn't carrying a Zanpakuto.

"Zangetsu!"

There was a streak of black, like lighting shooting across the field. Kurosaki's sword, enormous, as long as he was arrived in his hand. He must have left it somewhere at the edge of the clearing.

"Don't worry, we're not going to fight anything too terrible. Of course, when I say nothing too terrible I mean that by _my_ standards, not yours. Just to make sure nothing gets out of hand I'm going to call my Bankai." He grinned at them, a very harsh grin. "Trial by fire kids. After this we can try Hueco Mundo. Bankai!"

They all fell back before the immense spiritual pressure he released, his immense sword compressing down-

-all anyone could focus on was his wild yell as he activated the hollow bait in his hand.


End file.
